I'm glad to see those quotes substantiating Nilsson's toughness and character. It's a shame that the early Swedes' struggles aren't more widely chronicled.

Edit: added those passages to his bio for future reference.

Borje Salming's struggles in the NHL are widely known; Pelletier even calls him "the most important hockey player of all time." For whatever reason, the struggles of the WHA guys are much less known. Obviously part of that is because Salming played in the NHL. Maybe it was partly because Hedberg and Nilsson took a ton of abuse, but didn't dish it out like Salming did.